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Planetary Gods
The Planetary Gods were seven deities associated with the seven visible moving bodies in the sky, five moving planets proper plus the Sun and Moon. Each were also assigned to a day of the week in a system which may have been devised by the Phoenicians and adapted by other cultures. As Introduced by Geoffrey of Monmouth Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae has Hengist refer to the pagan gods he worships by the names he uses and for some, by the Roman gods with whom they are traditionally identified. Hengist refers to the connections of some gods to the days of the astrological seven-day cycle known as the week. Hengist mentions Saturn, Jove, and especially Mercury whom Hengist calls Wōden and whom he worships as the supreme god and associates with Wednesday. With Wōden Hengist worships the goddess Freia whom Hengist associates with Friday. Freia therefore ought to be identical to the Old English goddess Frīg whose name appears in Friday, but the form Freia appears to more closely resemble that of the separate Old Norse goddess Freyja who is somewhat similar to Frīg. Possibly the worship of Freyja was introduced into England by the Danes and she was confused with Frīg. As Introduced by Wace Wace introduces a god named Fébus (Phoebus) at the beginning of Hengist’s list, presumably representing an Old English god who could be identified with the Roman god Phoebus Apollō. Perhaps he might be equated with an Old English god named Wuldor ‘Glory’ who would be identical with the known Old Norse god Ullr. As Introduced by Lawman Lawman also introduces Phoebus as well as two other gods, Apolin and Tervagant who are often falsely mentioned by Christian poets as gods worshiped by Muslims. Then Lawman mentions all the gods of the week, including the Sun, the Moon, and one Tidea who is assigned to Tuesday. The name Tidea appears to have a feminine ending but should correspond to the god male Tīw with whom Tuesday is actually connected. The Named Gods Commentary The deities of each system correspond with one another to the point that it is obvious that there is a single astrological system underlying the identifications make in the various pantheons. That the Sun and Moon vary in sex in different pantheons is ignored. There are only two notable discrepancies. The Neobabylonian god Ninurta does not fit with the other pantheons. His name means ‘Lord Plough’ and he was a god connected with ploughing, irrigation, and war. But the Phoenician system resembled the Hebrew system in which the seventh and last day of the week was assigned to the supreme god, who in the Hebrew Bible is also sometimes named ʼĒl. Phoenician ʼĒl was identified with the Greek god Cronos and the Roman god Saturn because ʼĒl, though sometimes identified as the supreme god, was also conceived as an older god than the storm god Hadad and hostile to him, and eventually defeated by him. For example, in Exodus 6.3, God reportedly says: I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as ʼĒl Shaddai, but by my name Yāhwê I did not make myself known to them. The divine name ʼĒl when found in the Bible is normally translated as ‘God’. The more normal Hebrew word for ‘God’ is ʼᴱlōhîm. The Germanic system appears to have no god uniquely identifiable with ʼĒl, Cronos, or Saturn, and accordingly no identification was made. Rather the Roman god Saturn was introduced into Old English under his own name, with only a slight change in the pronunciation. The Old Norse ignored him altogether, the seventh day becoming Laugardagr/Lørdag which means merely ‘Washing Day’. In Old Icelandic translations of Classical mythology the Roman god Saturn’s name is glossed as Njǫrðr, a god connected with the sea and with wealth, the father of the Norse deities Freyr and Freyja.